A Pineapple Express hit Southern California the day after Christmas and didn't stop pumping rain and high winds across the Los Angeles Basin for more than two weeks. A Pineapple Express is a winter weather pattern created when the subtropical Pacific Jet Stream is blocked from its normal wintertime track up into the Pacific Northwest by a stationary high-altitude low off the Oregon coast. (See " AOPA Sweepstakes: Hurry Up and Wait," page 83 and " Wx Watch: Trough Talk," page 129.) The storm created havoc: A mud slide rocketed down into the coastal town of La Conchita and buried 10 people; mud slides closed two out of three major north/south highways where 28 people died; mountain towns were completely cut off; and floodwaters covered the runway and many hangars at Corona Municipal Airport. Amidst sad stories of trauma, loss of life, and destruction there are always stories that stand out. One of these is the story of the selfless donation of time, materials, and energy by a community to save the 500 airplanes based at Corona.
Sunday night, January 16
AOPA Airport Support Network volunteer Woodrow A. Anselen, along with Airport Manager Rich Brodeur, was at the Corona airport, which is billed as "The Friendliest Little Airport in America," late into the night on Sunday January 16. They were watching the waters of the Santa Ana River rise. The Corona airport is built on the floodplain of the river, and it had flooded before. After concluding that the danger wasn't imminent, Anselen went to bed around 12:30 a.m. on Monday.
Less than five hours later, his telephone rang. The call was from the airport — the waters were rising fast — if he wanted to save his airplane he needed to get going.
"I saw the surrealistic strangeness of seeing a menagerie of airplanes scattered around the city streets. People were swarming like ants to move airplanes out of danger. They must have been at it all night," remembers Anselen.
Since the airport had a history of flooding, many pilots had already flown their airplanes to safety — there are two general aviation airports within seven miles of Corona — but there were still hundreds of airplanes to move to higher ground.
Move them onto the streets
Very early Monday morning Brodeur decided that extraordinary measures would be required to care for the airplanes of Corona airport. So he opened an airport security gate and ordered airplanes moved onto the nearby city streets and parking lots. This was not the only tough decision Brodeur made. Pilots continued to fly their airplanes off the eastern end of Corona's 3,200-foot-long runway. But as the waters rose, more and more of the runway was being flooded.
Normally the floodgates built into the Prado Dam, located one and a half miles off the end of Corona's Runway 25, are opened and closed to control flow below the dam. Because of overwhelming water inflows to the flood control basin — later estimated by the Army Corp of Engineers to be more than 18,000 cubic feet per second — the dam, which was dumping 8,900 cubic feet per second through its open floodgates, was adding to Corona's problem. As the floodwaters continued to rise, Brodeur issued the order that made some pilots angry: No more takeoffs would be allowed since there was less than 1,000 feet of runway left.
Shortly before Brodeur's decision, Anselen had signed a waiver and taken off in his antique 1938 Bucker Jungmann. Compared to the tension caused by his takeoff from the flood-shortened runway at Corona, his landing into less-than-ideal conditions for a tailwheel airplane — a 20-knot crosswind at Flabob Airport in Riverside — was just another day at the airport. "We've all heard and trained for emergency landings, but an emergency takeoff?" Anselen says.
Both Brodeur and Anselen say the real story of the Great Corona Rescue is the people who went above and beyond their normal duties and personal responsibilities to take care of their flying friends and neighbors.
Bob, an America West Airlines mechanic who had heard about the flooding, showed up to help out. He helped Anselen load a pickup truck with gear from his hangar. Bob didn't have an airplane at Corona; he just came to help because, he said, "aviation people are good people and it was time to help."
Anselen cites extraordinary help from George "Mad Greek" Bougeokles, owner of George's Aircraft Painting, Gale "Godfather" Grant, who at 81 years of age (and the unofficial mayor of Corona Municipal Airport) never slowed down, and others such as "Luscombe" Bill, "The Kid" Jay, and the father-son duo known as "Siegfried and Roy," all of whom lent a hand wherever one was needed. Unfortunately there are many more who deserve recognition but who aren't named in this account. They know who they are, and the people they worked next to know who they are, and that connection is the one that counts.
The 40-hour marathon
Hangar locks were jimmied, and the airplanes that belonged to out-of-town pilots were rescued. The rescue went on from early in the morning on Monday January 17 through the night until the evening of Tuesday January 18. The Riverside Chapter of the American Red Cross joined in the effort to provide coffee, water, and snacks for the rescuers of the Corona 500.
That the waiver that allowed Anselen to fly out in his Jungmann was available at this frantic stage of the proceedings was a tribute to Susan Brunner of the city staff. Brodeur said that although a few of his unorthodox decisions (such as taking down city stop signs to ensure the safety of the airplanes) could have caused him trouble, he had the unqualified support of other city and airport staff members. He asked that Mark Wills, Tim Brown, Ilene Harter, and Don Dominguez be recognized and said, "Without their cooperation it would never have happened."
By Wednesday morning the waters had started to recede. And the cleanup began. All the airplanes are now back on the airport property, and all the inspections to ensure that it's safe to start cleaning up (a 24-inch sewer line had broken upstream during the storm) are finished. The stimulus-fueled work of fighting the storm to save the airplanes is complete. Putting things right and flushing out the mud will go on for a while. As of January 20, there was still no electricity or water service on the airport, but the cleanup is progressing and things are slowly returning to normal. Anselen reports that he's reassured to see that Barney "Barnacle" Starr is back in his normal spot — on "bench duty" and ready to resume rating everyone's landings.
Sadly, there were a few airplanes claimed by the storm. But everyone who came down to fight the floodwaters has a story to tell and it's a story about how they all joined together for 40 hours in January 2005 to save the 500 airplanes of "The Friendliest Little Airport in America."
E-mail the author at [email protected].
Related Articles
